Five Soldiers Nabbed For Gang-raping Student

By Niyi Olutunde, Akure

The 32 Artillery Brigade of the Nigeria Army, Akure, Ondo State has arrested the soldiers who were involved in the alleged rape of a female student of the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko.

It would be recalled that the victim, who is said to be a 300-level student of the Department of Religious and African Studies of the university was allegedly gang-raped by some soldiers at a checkpoint in Ikare Akoko, on Wednesday.

The student was allegedly forced to alight from a commercial bus, by one of the soldiers, who is a Lance Corporal. He also forced the driver and other passengers of the bus to leave.

He allegedly dragged the victim into a cubicle at the back of checkpoint, where she was allegedly assaulted sexually.

The victim was said to be returning from the campus on Wednesday when the incident happened.

But the Brigade Commander of the brigade, Brig. Gen. Zakari Abubakar when contacted on Friday, confirmed the arrest of the soldiers and said the brigade had commenced investigation into the matter.

Abubakar said, “It is very true that they (the soldiers) have been arrested. We have commenced our investigation.”

Similarly, the management of the AAUA said the matter was being investigated.

The university, however, noted that the victim had not officially reported the matter to the management for proper action.

Speaking with our correspondent on the incident, the head of the Media and Protocol Unit of the AAUA, Mr. Victor Akinpelumi, reiterated that the institution had already taken steps to investigate the incident.

Akinpelumi said, “The victim has not officially reported the matter to the school authorities. But this is a matter that concerns one of our students and we have taken steps. The university has set up a committee to investigate the incident and the committee would submit its report in a few days.

“I believe during the course of the investigation by the committee, the lady would be invited for questioning while many other people believed to know one thing or the other about the incident, would be interrogated by the committee. So the report of the committee would reveal everything that happened.”